(1) Except as provided in sections 39-212 to 39-222, the erection or maintenance of any advertising sign, display, or device which is visible from the main-traveled way of the Highway Beautification Control System is prohibited. On-premise signs, directional and official signs, and notices as defined and controlled in the department’s rules and regulations shall be permitted.

Terms Used In Nebraska Statutes 39-215

  • Highway: means the entire width between the boundary limits of any street, road, avenue, boulevard, or way which is publicly maintained when any part thereof is open to the use of the public for purposes of vehicular travel. See Nebraska Statutes 39-101
  • Jurisdiction: (1) The legal authority of a court to hear and decide a case. Concurrent jurisdiction exists when two courts have simultaneous responsibility for the same case. (2) The geographic area over which the court has authority to decide cases.
  • Maintenance: means the act, operation, or continuous process of repair, reconstruction, or preservation of the whole or any part of any highway, including surface, shoulders, roadsides, traffic control devices, structures, waterways, and drainage facilities, for the purpose of keeping it at or near or improving upon its original standard of usefulness and safety. See Nebraska Statutes 39-101
  • Person: shall include bodies politic and corporate, societies, communities, the public generally, individuals, partnerships, limited liability companies, joint-stock companies, and associations. See Nebraska Statutes 49-801
  • Right-of-way: means the right of one vehicle or pedestrian to proceed in a lawful manner in preference to another vehicle or pedestrian approaching under such circumstances of direction, speed, and proximity as to give rise to danger of collision unless one grants precedence to the other. See Nebraska Statutes 39-101
  • State: when applied to different states of the United States shall be construed to extend to and include the District of Columbia and the several territories organized by Congress. See Nebraska Statutes 49-801

(2) Other signs controlled in accordance with the federal-state agreement shall be permitted, if conforming to sections 39-212 to 39-222, in the following areas:

(a) All zoned commercial or industrial areas within the boundaries of incorporated municipalities, as those boundaries existed on September 21, 1959, and all other areas where the land use as of September 21, 1959, was clearly established by law or ordinance as industrial or commercial in which outdoor advertising signs, displays, and devices may be visible from the main-traveled way of the National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, except that no such signs, displays, or devices shall be permitted in areas in which advertising control easements have been acquired;

(b) All zoned and unzoned commercial and industrial areas in which outdoor advertising signs, displays, and devices may be visible from the main-traveled way of those portions of the National System of Interstate and Defense Highways constructed upon right-of-way, any part of the width of which was acquired on or before July 1, 1956, except that no such signs, displays, or devices shall be permitted in areas in which advertising control easements have been acquired;

(c) All zoned and unzoned commercial and industrial areas in which outdoor advertising signs, displays, and devices may be visible from the main-traveled way of all portions of the Highway Beautification Control System other than the National System of Interstate and Defense Highways within the State of Nebraska, except that no such signs, displays, or devices shall be permitted in areas in which advertising control easements have been acquired. No signs shall be allowed in such areas along scenic byways except those permitted under section 39-218 ; and

(d) All signs, displays, or devices beyond six hundred sixty feet of the edge of the right-of-way of the Highway Beautification Control System and outside of urban areas which are visible from the main-traveled way are prohibited except those which are authorized to be erected by the Federal-Aid Highway Acts of 1965, 1970, and 1974 and those signs whose advertising message is only visible from a secondary road or street but not visible from the main-traveled way of the Highway Beautification Control System.

(3) In the areas described in subsection (2) of this section, advertising signs, displays, and devices shall be allowed to be erected in accordance with the following criteria:

(a) Whenever a bona fide state, county, or local zoning authority has made a determination of customary use, as to size, lighting, and spacing, such determination may be accepted in lieu of criteria established by regulation in the zoned commercial and industrial areas described in subsection (2) of this section within the geographical jurisdiction of such authority unless conflicting with laws not contained in this section or with the rules and regulations of the department; and

(b) In all other areas described in subsection (2) of this section, the following criteria shall apply:

(i) On-premise signs as defined and controlled in the department’s rules and regulations shall be permitted;

(ii) Those signs referred to as being permitted in the October 1968 federal-state agreement shall be permitted when in conformity with the rules and regulations of the department;

(iii) Within the areas in which, according to sections 39-212 to 39-222, advertising signs will be permitted, such signs shall conform to standards and criteria as to height, width, spacing, and lighting as set forth in the rules and regulations of the department;

(iv) Nothing contained in such sections shall be construed to allow any person or persons, except the department, to erect signs within the right-of-way of any portion of the state highway system or, except the county, to erect official signs within the right-of-way of any portion of the county road system;

(v) Nothing contained in such sections shall be construed to prevent the department from acquiring easements for the control of outdoor advertising;

(vi) Nothing contained in such sections shall be construed to require the removal of signs in zoned and unzoned commercial and industrial areas, lawfully in existence on March 27, 1972, which signs may under such sections remain and continue in place even if nonconforming; and

(vii) The powers conferred by such sections are supplementary and additional powers, and nothing contained in such sections shall be deemed amendatory or in derogation of any other grant of power or authority to the department.

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